Just as Liu Chengzong's army relied on the huge manpower of the people of Lintao Prefecture to overthrow every city outside Lanzhou, the 40,000 Oirat coalition army led by the national adviser Khan finally arrived in Golmud after an expedition.
This is almost a reflection of the status of the leaders of the Heshuote tribe. Batur Hutaiji and Mergen Daiqing of the Junggar tribe; Mergen Jinong and Gonbuyilden of the Turghut tribe;
Sultan Taiji, Sumur Taiji; Dalai Taiji and Baoyilden of the Dulbert tribe all put aside the discord among their tribes and led their troops to fight.
The Oirat tribes are not a huge monolithic alliance. They only obey the leadership of the Golden Family and the Shuote Tribe in name. In fact, each tribe operates independently and even often fights in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains.
Only this time, with an unprecedented show of unity, the various tribes gathered their troops to complete a long march of four thousand miles in four months, not to defeat any enemies, but to send off their leader and fight for the limited living space in Qinghai. In Golmud, the state advisor Khan smiled as he listened to the cavalry report from Ili: The Russians from the north sent envoys to Ili, but they could not see any prominent nobles in Oirat.
His envoys went to Xining with a humble attitude. This was not intentional. In fact, there was another group of envoys who also used the same attitude and the humble etiquette of subordinates, embarking on the road to find the Golden Taiji. p>
This is not strategic deception, but the national teacher Khan... is really weak.
Focusing on Oirat, this is a huge alliance with nearly 800,000 Mongolians. They not only possess the bravery and proficiency of the Mongols, but also have an extraordinary unity that is different from the Mongolian tradition. They are extremely powerful.
Of course, they are also surrounded by dangers. To the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains controlled by Oirat, to the west is the Kazakh Khanate, which has been at war with it for many years, to the east is the Khalkha Mongolia, which was at war with it, and to the south is the sandy Eastern Chagatai Khan.
country, and the Russian expedition team in the north, which is very disturbing.
In such a seemingly evenly matched environment, the Heshuote tribe, which is qualified to claim the title of Khan because of the Golden Family, is not strong enough. The real leader of Oirat is Batur Huitaiji of the Junggar tribe who is not from the Golden Family.
The cold climate does not only attack the Han and Jurchens, but also tortures everyone in every country in Eurasia, and the Mongols in Oirat are no exception.
When the land gives people insufficient living space, no matter how smart they are, all their actions will ultimately lead to one process and two results:
Through war, you can gain more land or fewer people.
The unity of Oirat should have an extraordinary status in the history of the Mongols.
Although the Turghut tribe who moved westward or the Heshuote tribe who are now marching south can be said to have been squeezed by the rising Junggar tribe and were forced to leave their hometowns, in fact they chose to stay away from their homeland to avoid civil war and the war between brothers.
A last-ditch effort.
Temujin and Jamuka would not have made such a choice.
Borjijin Tulubaihu is weak, on the one hand, because his headquarters only has more than 10,000 elite soldiers, and on the other hand, he has no retreat.
He has already negotiated with Hutaiji of Junggar. No matter what he gets from this expedition, the land, population, goods, and livestock will all belong to him. In exchange, he will hand over Oirat to Hutaiji.
Just like the Torgut tribe who moved westward, they will continue to marry and maintain a particularly friendly relationship.
The goal of the expedition is very clear, which is to conquer Chahar, which has migrated here, settle in Tumote in Qinghai, and graze cattle throughout Qinghai and Uzang.
Because of his surname and title, he can support him in doing such a thing.
He is a descendant of the Golden Family and the Khan of Oirat. At the same time, he is also the great national teacher of the Yellow Sect of Tubo.
Throughout late March, the nobles of the four tribes of Oirat had fun in the Gobi Gobi and rivers of Golmud, recruiting small Mongolian tribes scattered around as spies to collect intelligence on the Qinghai Marshal's Mansion.
On the fifth day of April in the sixth year of Chongzhen, four great nobles gathered in Golmud to hold an alliance meeting.
In the huge mobile felt tent, people stepped on a huge tapestry from the Ottomans and gathered together with Ili's kumiss.
Batur Hutaiji in his prime looks like a lion, with a shaved head and a single braid in the middle, which is the standard hairstyle of the Oirat people. He wears a luxurious plain satin robe and has a flintlock pistol at his waist.
, sitting proudly on the side of the felt tent.
Behind him stood Mongolian guards wearing iron armor and ermine ornaments, and Cossack prisoners who surrendered during the northern war.
He played with a few lion tickets worth one tael in his hand, and said with a relaxed smile to the leaders of the tribes: "We have been fighting around the Salt Lake with Chahan's gangsters in the north for more than ten years. We can easily find the Salt Lake here.
Khan is indeed wise."
The Chahan in his mouth is the Tsar.
Tsar is the Russian transliteration of the Greek word "Caesar", which is pronounced like "Sha" or "Chakhan". The "Tsar" is just the honorific title given to the head of state of the Russian Empire in later generations.
When the Mongols enslaved the Russians in the 13th century, the Russians also honored the Mongol Khan as Tsar.
For the Junggar tribe, the Russians are not new to them. They first came into contact with the Russians as early as the 33rd year of Wanli.
In fact, for the Mongolian tribes in the north of Oirat, their lives have not been easy since the Wanli Year, and they are used to paying tribute from both sides.
It was not easy for them to live in a world of ice and snow. It was good for them to pay tribute to the Kazakh Khan. Unexpectedly, Tumote's Anda Khan launched an expedition to overthrow the Kazakhs. The old Mongolian people did not even know where Anda Khan was, so they became
The tributes of Anda Khan.
After paying tribute for more than ten years, the Junggars of Oirat moved north. Although Anda Khan was dead, the power of the Holy Lion of the Grassland was still there, and they became dual tributes of the Junggars and Tumut.
In a blink of an eye, the Russians came again, and once again became the triple tribute of the Junggars, Tumuts and the Russians.
From the perspective of the Junggar tribe, the quality of these Cossack barbarians from Russia is too low, and it is useless to speak human words. While they pay tribute to the Junggar nobles, they also invade the Junggar tribute tribes.
Then you can only speak with a machete.
So in the thirty-fifth year of Wanli, 5,000 Dzungar cavalry surrounded 200 Russians, using bows, arrows and machetes to fight against wooden fort artillery. The battle was very hard. Two years later, the Russians sent envoys to the Dzungar tribe.
Like today's national advisor Khan, Gur surrendered to the Russians in the city of Tala at the mouth of the Angakkar River.
Because they were flanked by Tumut and Kazakh.
The battle for the salt ponds mentioned by Huitaiji began in the 38th year of Wanli Dynasty. Zhungeer captured the city of Tala and cut off the salt production area that the Cossacks depended on for their survival. The two sides fought and fought around the salt ponds, sometimes looted and sometimes traded.
I have continued to fight on and off until today.
During this process, the Junggar tribe realized the gap in weapons. Therefore, in the forty-eighth year of Wanli, the Junggar tribe ordered the blacksmith Tatars in the lower reaches of the Ob River to imitate Russian muskets and armor. These tribal warriors who adhere to the ancient nomadic tradition used
Got new weapons.
Also during the war around the Salt Pond, the Junggars attacked the Nogai tribe in the lower reaches of the Volga River to the west and expelled the Nogai tribe to the west, creating a living space for the Torgut tribe to move westward.
Therefore, the southern expedition of the Heshuo Special Division's national division Khan was actually just an old wisdom of the Junggars. They also wanted to carve out a world for the Heshuo Special Division.
After that, Batur Hutaiji asked the Cossack guard behind him to hand the lion ticket to the national counselor Khan sitting opposite him, and said: "This is what the small tribes here use to do business with the Xining Generalissimo. They actually
No need for money... These people are more greedy than Chahan's thugs. We can't exchange 10,000 horses for these useless little pieces of cloth!"
Hutai Ji from the Junggar tribe came here not only for war, but also for trade.
Although compared to its cousins in Eastern Mongolia, Oirat is not scarce in iron, food and other materials necessary for life, but the pressure of food and grass for long-distance expeditions is still not small, and some supplies are needed.
However, in addition to supplies, he carried a large camel and horse team on an expedition, mainly in exchange for Ming Dynasty's Tongbao, silver, silk and porcelain.
Regardless of whether it is the Bukhara Khanate or the Ottoman merchants, there is no shortage of war horses, but as long as they use silver, treasures, silks, satins and porcelain, they will be recognized.
Khuteiji does not need these things, but the Russians will soon start another war with him, because on the one hand, the envoys of the Russian monarch came to Oirat this time, hoping to discuss the exchange of prisoners.
Obviously, exchanging prisoners will make it easier to restart the war, so as to avoid killing prisoners to vent anger when the war starts.
On the other hand, the Khiva Khanate near the Aral Sea hates the Junggars who occupy the Silk Road, and they plan to act together with Russia.
Maritime trade caused the decline of the overland Silk Road, but the decline was only from the perspective of the Central Plains Dynasty. After all, it is difficult to imagine the living conditions of a small country under normal circumstances for a country the size of the Central Plains Dynasty or the Ottoman Empire.
For example, the Khiva Khanate in Khorezm was located between the Central Plains and the Ottoman trade routes. Because the trade routes were cut off, the economic level was extremely low, resulting in an extreme lack of culture.
Their Great Khan was preparing to compile a history book for his dynasty, but he searched throughout the Khanate and could not find anyone with enough education to do the job.
Huetaiji's musketeers were very good at bullying the Mongolian tribes, but it was almost impossible to fight against the Russians because they were not that skilled after all.
The gun is just a pipe, which is very easy to make, but it is of no use against the Russian earthen fortresses.
He needs a cannon.
It was difficult to make cannons, because they had to be made of copper. He also captured cast-iron cannons from the Russians, but he didn't know how those things were cast.
The Russian prisoners didn't know that their cast-iron cannons were also bought.
There are only a few countries in the world that can cast iron cannons, and Russia, which uses wooden farm tools, is not one of them.
Huitaiji sold the horse to the Ming Dynasty in exchange for silver and silk, and then used the silver and silk to buy some camel cannon from the west. Next year, he will go back to the north to deal with the fur traders and bandits in Qiuming.
But combined with the lion ticket and the price of goods in the Juerwan market, Huitaiji clapped his hands: "Then Liu Chengzong must have carefully calculated. How can others make money by exchanging nine sheep for one knife?"
This price is made clear so that middlemen are not allowed to make the difference, which makes people angry.
The national advisor Khan sat aside, just like the ordinary nobles of the tribes present, far less imposing than Huitaiji.
Just like the surname Bo'er Zijin, they once conquered all directions with their strong soldiers and horses, making this surname a golden family, but the golden family itself is not the reason for their strong soldiers and horses.
The emperor's soldiers and horses are strong, and the same is true for Khan.
In other words, in this era of deteriorating climate, emperors, khans, kings, and sultans all over the world are the same. When the external living space becomes smaller, people are eager to follow powerful heroes instead of noble blood.
Strong soldiers and horses are the strength of a man. Heshuote was unable to compete with the Junggars in Oirat, and he did not speak with much dignity. He just looked at the lion ticket and said: "Buy some food from the Marshal's Mansion and attack Chahar first.
See his reaction."
After garrisoning troops in Golmud for more than ten days and summarizing the intelligence from the Marshal's Office reported by small departments from various places, the National Advisor Khan was relatively optimistic about the situation.
He said: "The Tumote Taijis of the Marshal's Mansion have all gone to Uzang. The large areas of land in Qinghai that cannot be cultivated are extremely empty. There are only a few inns. After Chahar Lindan Khan is annihilated, we can then negotiate with the Marshal's Mansion.
, divide these pasture lands."
"There is nothing to negotiate. Are you really planning to pay rent to the Han people?"
Huitai Ji laughed, shook his head and said: "I heard that the best places here are one on the sea and the other in Guide. We are waiting for an opportunity to draw out their main force. The land here is vast. We can run fast and annihilate them.
, grab some craftsmen and go back."
Batur Hutaiji knew that the Han people were very skilled. It would be of no benefit to him to only attack Lin Dan Khan in Chahar. He would just make a wedding dress for the Heshuo Special Department. Of course, this wedding dress made him happy. p>
As long as Oirat's national advisor Khan stays in Qinghai, and when he returns to the Tianshan Mountains, the entire four tribes will be able to claim the title of Khan in a short time.
However, if we can plunder some Han craftsmen and make cannons for them, it will be much easier to deal with the Russians in the north.
"Buy it, isn't this how Choktu Taiji of Khalkha was annihilated by him?"
The Imperial Guard Khan felt that it was pointless to start a war with the Han people. His tribe seldom cultivated land and was mainly nomadic. It had little conflict with the Han people. However, Lin Dan Khan and Tumote of Chahar were the number one enemies.
Now most of Tumote has entered Uzang, which is the main battlefield for him.
The Junggars are different. In their trade with the Russians, they exchanged furs for rye seeds that could be grown in the north. Many Junggar tribute residents have planted rye.
Therefore, the Junggar people naturally feel that the Han people are also enemies fighting for their living space.
"What are you buying? I heard that he only has a dozen cannons, which are not as many as the fur traders in Tyumen. Where can they sell them to me?"
Batur Hutaiji shook his head. He was very confident in the combat effectiveness of the Junggar tribe.
There are 3,000 musket-wielding soldiers under his command of 10,000, equipped with various types of muskets manufactured by Yarkand, Ottoman, Moscow, England, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Among them, the Ottoman muskets were bought, the Yarkand muskets were stolen, and the muskets from other countries were stolen from Russian fur traders.
There are also two materials: copper and iron, and three production methods of cast copper, cast iron, and wrought iron, including breech-loaded French guns, front-loaded smoothbore guns, long and short, and nine types of artillery of various models, some captured and some bought, a total of nine.
.
At least as far as the Mongols are concerned, Batur Hutaiji believes that the only thing limiting Junggar at this time is that they have too few people. In time, they will be the most powerful khanate among all the countries established by the Mongols.<
/p>
Finally, the scattered rangers came to report that they finally found the enemy. Lin Danhan of Chahar was stationed at the foot of Wulan Mountain and was moving towards Chaka Salt Lake.
People say that there is a mountain fortress of the Marshal's Mansion.
Batur Hutaiji thought to himself, fighting around the Salt Lake? I know it!
